Fort Worth daily gazette. (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1882-1891, 1887-02-21
MARDI GRAS.
The Crescent City We'll Crowded wish
Visitors t. Witness the Festivities
of the Annual Carnival.
Rex Enters the City To-Day and New Or.
leans VIII Give Herself Up to Her
Royal Guests.

Correspondence of the Gazette.
NEW ORLEANS, La, Feb. l7.-Al-
though the carnival is only Just be-
gun, the hotels aud boarding houses of
the city are well crowded with visitors.
There is something of g change in the
class of people here from previous years.
Since the Southern Pacific Railroad has
become the gra. winter route for travel
between New England and California
there has been an extraordinary number
Of people from these sections here, and
New Orleans never perhaps boosted of
more visitors from the Pacific slope within
its boundaries than Just al present. While
the New England delegation is also IN
usually large, there are not as yet as
many here from the west as formerly, but
their number will probably increase be-
fore Mardi Gras.
Tonight when the Knights of Menus
turned out with their parade, the first Of
the carnival professions, all the line of
their march was ablaZe with light. The
club houses, newspaper offices and all
the public buildings were illuminated
with gas, calcium or electric lights,
arranged in fantastic and pleasing de-
signs and colors. Particularly notice
able were those OF the Pickwick, Louisi-
ana and Boston Clubs, with their names
In letters of fire, and clusters of colored
lamps, reaching from the tops of the
buildings like immense punches of
grapes. The line of march of the pro-
cession being limited, and confined to
Canal, Camp and ST. Charles streets, the
entire population of the city, visitors and
all, were congregated within that short
march of perhaps a mile and quarter
some 250,00e or more filing the street,
the esplanade in it's center, and crowding
even the car tops and the trees that fringe
that boulevard. Canal is lined like the
Corso at Rome with immense broad gal
leries, and where none of these existed,
as in front Of the club houses, temporary
balconies had been constructed, deco
rated, .Canopied, and converted into
dainty orera boxes for lady guests,
whence the procession could be seen
without encountering the hustle and ell
bowling of the crowd in the street below.
snrewd Spectator had also erected for
the general public, seats built like an am
phitheater, row above row, in lafayette
Square and on the neutral ground or
esplanade in the center, to which one was
glad to escape from the crush.
As usual, the crowd was q couple Of
hours before time, IN order to secure
! front places. There was q pleasing feel
! ing of doubt, because no one knew
whence the procession was to come or
what theme it would represent. 1t
! started from secluded cotton press in
! the rear OF town, in district altogether
! commercial and free of inhabitants. and
not until it was well under march did the
music strike up, and the lights were lit
/ 1t was O'Clock when the impatient
crowd on Canal street caught sight, in
the distance, far out toward the lake, OF
the lurid glare, looking Ike an immense
conf lgration which told Of the coming OF
Momus.
! There was hurry and furry of car.
riages to get out of its way, another bus
tie of the crowd 10 get good positions
and, amid blaze OF light and crash Of
music, the procession broke upon the
crowd. Around the title car, which led
it and told the subject of the parade
marched troop Of q score or more ne
4 groes, all of great height, and clad from
head to heel in red, and bearing immense
torches, whose glare lit Up the whole
each corner made the street as bright IS
daylight.
The title car which led this procession
represented one of those ruined temples
of Yucatan lately discovered by the
archTologist, DR.. De Plongein, covered
with the Maya hieroglyphics and statues
of gods. On its front, in letters of gold,
were the words: "The Myths of the
New World" which gave the spectator:
the information that the subject depicted
by the tableaux were the stories and
traditions of prehistoric Indian Amer
iCa.
Menus, the god of merrimeut and
mummery, tae monarch who assumes a
different form each year, followed in the
character of Manltou seated on the top
IF a peas, high above the clouds, smoking
the pipe Of peace,
The next scene was the Happy Hunting
Grounds of the Indians, where the de-
ceased redskins lived life of amending
bestitude, chasing forever the buffalo
and antelope. On the prairie were graz.
ing game. while birds of all kinds filled
the trees-all within easy reach of the
Indian spirits whose arrows in that happy
land never went astray of their aim.
Megissogioon, the Great Magician, the
Indian st. Patrick, followed, his wigwam
of gold perched, as the myth has it, upon
a rock of pearl in the midst of sea as
black as night, from which rose the horri,
Bile ssrpents he overcame and destroyed
Then came Shawoudassee, the South
wind, fat, indolent fellow, seated in o
swirg of grapevines hung between Two
high palms, in the midst of garden rich
with tropical plants of ali kinds, and rich
flowers growing everywhere. A group OF
naked girls famed the lazy god as he
slumbered.
Vuacochs, the Peruvian Creator, wss
next seen, rising from the illimitable
ocean which first covered the whole uni
verse. There was nothing to be seen but
broad eXpanse Of water, on which Vua-
cocha rode, surrounded by the four demi-
gods whom he created from the waves to
rule over the four winds.
The coming of Montezuma, the myth
still cherished by the Pueblo and Zuni
Indians, and other descendants of the
Aztecs, that the last Mexican Emperor
would return to drive the strangers from
the country, showed that chieftain clad in
feather armor riding upon the clouds col
ored in thousand hues by the setting